


contemplate friendship

by wreckageofstars



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, One-Shot, ambiguously canon, and a little bit. weird., best frenemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 02:54:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18379481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckageofstars/pseuds/wreckageofstars
Summary: [“Ah,” she says, as she blows open the door, umbrella twirling in hand. “There you are.”She'd followed that trail of leaking thoughts like a shark trailed blood in the water. This close, she can taste them on her tongue, weeping into the air. Spilt milk. Cracked saucer.]





	contemplate friendship

“Ah,” she says, as she blows open the door, umbrella twirling in hand. “There you are.”

She'd followed that trail of leaking thoughts like a shark trailed blood in the water. This close, she can taste them on her tongue, weeping into the air. Spilt milk. Cracked saucer.

Familiar. Even if the face is new. The gender too, maybe. Probably.

_Just us girls, now._

“Ugh.” She moves closer, heels clicking against the tacky lino, past the light trickling in from the hole where the door used to be. She tastes fear, dull and base and sterile and resigned. It should be delicious, but instead it makes her feel – well, something. Tired. Angry? “What have they done to you?” She tsks. “Disgusting.”

The face would be almost pretty, she thinks, taking in the button nose, the high cheekbones. It's hilariously young, but that's probably the point, isn't it. The face would be almost pretty, but the pupils are blown wide, just like the mind leaking out behind them. Psychic uninhibitors, she can smell them in her blood. Hmm. Also not unlike a shark actually, hah. But it's disgusting. Primitive techniques, lacking in precision. Careless, thoughtless, human bumbling, they don't even know her, they're not even hurting her right. It's not even pain done well, and that's the real insult.

“It's what you get, hanging around smelly humans all the time,” she remarks, taking her time with the restraints. “You know how they get with a scalpel and something they don't understand. Really, it's a wonder this doesn't happen to you more often.” The eyes track her, shiny in the dark, glassy. Thoughts catch jagged at the edges of her, unconstrained, _despairdespairdespair_ –

One hand free. It falls limply to the side.

“Oh, don't be dramatic,” she says, starting on the other. “You're not dreaming. It's really me. _Surprise_.”

 _Despairdespairdespair_ , pounding away at her, folding and crumbling into fractals at the barrier of her own mind. Uncivilized, unthinkably rude, unrestrained thought, a dam broken open, a piggy bank, cracked. Pathetic. Distasteful.

Second hand free, and it falls, and she slumps forward, boneless, _despairdespairdespair_ –

She catches her under the armpit with one hand, presses her head to her chest with the other. _Despairdespairdespair_. “Listen,” she insists, pressing her head to her hearts. “Look, stop it, you're embarrassing the both of us. And giving me a headache.”

Behind them, an alarm begins to wail. Long delayed, but the insects here are stupid, primitive, useless. Sneaking in had been easy. Sneaking out will be – exciting. She intends to leave with a bang. Oh, and there's – anger again, or something sharp and crooked, all rust and jagged edges at her core. It's more complicated than anger, maybe.

 _No one gets to hurt you but me_ , she thinks, and it's a very old thought and it's maybe not quite right anymore. Her memory is blurry, honestly, from her execution to her – well, execution, except for the sexy bits where things had gotten blown up. But something inside of her feels different now. She's of two minds. One of them still wants something so badly –

Ugh. Sentiment. No time, plus, it's dreadfully inefficient.

The taste of despair leaves her mouth, as her heartbeats pound away, material, unmistakeable. _Hatelovehoperelief_ fills the space, and it tastes like sunlight, and it's almost worse.

“I could just leave you on the floor, you know,” she remarks, as she feels hesitant fingers clench weakly in the fabric of her overcoat. “It would serve you right, and it would be hilarious.” She pulls away to stare down into those new-old eyes, wet and shiny in the gloom. _Tiredconfusedgratefulirritated_. She sucks in air through her teeth. “Why are you always so glad to see me, when all I've ever tried to do is kill you?”

Not strictly true, and they both know it. _Orangeskywarmairtallgrass_ slides in behind her eyes, a bit vindictively. The fingers clench tighter. _Iknowyouremember_.

She shakes off the mental grasp with a twist of her mouth – _rude, uncivilized, I don't care if it's not your fault, get out_ – and starts moving them both towards the door-hole, hoisting beneath the arm-pit, rolling her eyes at the pathetic scrabbling of feet against the lino that ensues.

Rasping nonsense reaches her ears, a messy creole of Gallifreyan and English and medieval Sontaran. Confusion still hangs thick as a blanket, doubt and relief in equal measure, and that sour, boring fear, clanging away.

It's the fear that's made her angry, she decides. Despair, fine, shame, sure, hopelessness, pain, fury, disgust, whatever. Fear, though –

Proprietary domain. _Leave it to the expert_ , she thinks, but that doesn't sit quite right either, anymore.

“Lipgloss?” she offers, because the lips of that thin, drawn mouth, like an adorable, unhappy line, are cracked at the edges, chapped and dry. “Or if you felt inclined to put some welly into it, we could leave before your little humany-wumans decide two science experiments are better than one, and I have to make you watch while I pluck out their eyeballs.” She considers. “I still might. Not because I'm angry, just because it might be fun. Thoughts?”

 _Don't_ , she tastes, and grins as the feet find purchase in principle. She staggers them towards the door-hole, graceless. The grin drops into a scowl. “ _Don't_? If you can't maim the hand that spites you, then who can you maim? Honestly, you're the worst. And still boring, to boot. I've forgotten everything you taught me on purpose because it was absolute pants.”

“ _How_ – ”

“ – did I survive?” No clue. “Why would I tell you?” She frowns. “How did _you_ survive?”

 _Paincoldtearsstarsfallingfallingfalling_ –

She whitens her knuckles around soft blue fabric, watches harsh lights glint coldly in straw-coloured hair. “Stop it,” she hisses, wincing, dragging them both around a corner. Above them, the alarm blares on. “They've scraped you open, sure, but that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us.”

“What,” and her voice is scraped and raw, too, northern and unrefined, “scared you'll catch a feeling?”

“Your new face is too nice-looking,” she spits back, still rushing them both down the corridor, fingers dug in, half-dragging, half-pulling, against the tread of uncooperative feet. “Blow up any planets lately? I know you get an itch.”

 _Metalsunfireburning_ , before it gets tangled back and swallowed clumsily, reeled in like a fish on a string. She picks at the thread, plucks the details from her unguarded mind shamelessly, rudely. The doors have been blown open, after all. It's not her fault they open both ways.

She laughs, delighted. “You threw it into it's own exploding sun? Now that's gorgeous. Poetic, even. I'd say I didn't think you had it in you, but – ”

Shame, delicious and sweet. Breath hisses against her neck, warm. “ _Get out_.”

She bites back a grin. The running away together, she muses, pausing to consider the press of their bodies together, struggling forward, with and not against – it's new. It's not – bad. But it's not quite right either, if it ever was. If it ever could have been. If it ever wasn't. If it ever shouldn't.

She still likes to feel like she's winning. Giving up ground, like she had on the colony ship, when she'd felt herself slipping out from under, pieces of her flaking away, something in the shape of a conscience fleeting, sharp and new and painful –

Well. Who could blame a girl for running? But the right thing might be alright, she muses, as long as it stays a secret. That's how she stays winning, maybe. That's how she keeps the upper hand.

And in the meantime, she's still going to blow these buggers sky high. Progressive realization, that's the buzzword, right?

“Come along,” she urges, umbrella pinging against the ground. She scrapes it into the floor like a claw, lurches them forward, step by step. The TARDIS is waiting in a maintenance closet just ahead, pathetically within reach this whole time. _Getting sloppy in your old age. Or just getting tired?_ “We haven't got all day, detonation's on a timer.”

A lady always plans ahead, after all.

There's no protest, though, no rush of moral indignation, and when she glances down, she finds a head lolling in unconsciousness, pale and exhausted. The feet have stopped even trying.

“Boring,” she mutters under her breath. “Well, I'll leave you a note, so you don't miss out on the destruction I've left in your wake.”

The maintenance closet smells of artificial lemon and bleach. The TARDIS doors open for her, with a bit of cajoling.

“Bit of a rush,” she says frankly, adjusting her grip. “Oh, come on, I'm just popping in for a moment!”

A creak, as she pushes through, dragging boots over the grate. She dumps her unceremoniously on the ground by the console.

 _Dear Human Pets_ , she scribbles on a post-it note, _do a better job next time_. _Kisses, M._

The post-it note sticks gently to her forehead.

“There,” she says, wrapping herself up against the flailing, ragged, sleeping edges of an unravelled mind. “Take a nap, pull yourself together. I won't always be in the neighbourhood, you know.”

It's probably better she's not awake, honestly. She can hear that voice now, new and old and familiar and not. _Stay_ , it would say. _Stay, I'll help you, I believe in you_.

If there's no asking, then there's no refusing. She can stay winning.

“No one kills me but you,” she whispers, because it's familiar. Because, in it's own sort of way, it's a promise. A promise just like any other. “And no one kills you but me.”

She leaves her lipgloss on the console as a parting gift. _Just us girls_ , she thinks, grinning. It's the lipgloss that makes them girls, probably. Right? That's roughly how humans do it.

“You can take it from here, right?” she says, patting a golden, glowy column – tacky, but not unexpected – and heading for the door. Her umbrella taps against the grate. “Take her back to her little ants. I've got other appointments.”

And another TARDIS stashed away, to reach before the whole place blows. She'll watch it from the atmosphere, smell the bodies cooking, taste the ash in the air. Classic entertainment. Better with a friend, but –

Well. She'll take what she can get, for now.

“Catch you later,” she whispers, leaving.

She smiles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> no proper nouns, we die like her
> 
> (why is Missy here? How is Missy here? UNCLEAR)
> 
> (this is short and messy and deliberately confusing - Exam Hell, whoop - but Missy, on account of being super bananas, is really fun to write??) (and I'm v invested in her and the Doctor's deeply messed up relationship) (anyway, hope you enjoyed, would love to hear what you thought!)


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